1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to direct data retrieval from an SAP system and more particularly relates to direct hierarchical querying of an SAP system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung, or Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing (SAP), is an enterprise information and management package that is used worldwide. The SAP system tracks and manages data relevant to an enterprise, including sales, production, finance, accounting, and human resources.
SAP software is highly customizable to fit a customer's needs, and contains many tools for the integration and linking of third party systems and software. It also runs on multiple hardware platforms. SAP data typically resides in a central database that is shared by SAP components. A variety of databases may be used for the central database, including Oracle, Informix, Online, Adabas, DB2, DB/400, and Microsoft SQL Server 6.
Business application programming interfaces (BAPIs) are one way that an SAP system may be accessed. BAPIs provide access to an SAP database from either within SAP or from other development platforms and third party applications external to SAP that support the remote function call (RFC) protocol. One objective of BAPIs is to provide a higher level of integration between SAP and external applications and systems.
BAPI'S, SAP applications, and parts of SAP's basic system are developed using SAP's advanced business application programming (ABAP) language. ABAP is SAP's fourth generation language. ABAP is used for customization and modification of SAP applications.
When using SAPs BAPIs, the user is limited to access the SAP database according to the functions defined and made available in the BAPIs. Some standard database functions are not implemented in the BAPIs, limiting the functionality and versatility of the SAP system when being accessed using the BAPIs. For example, it is not possible to check for the existence of data satisfying a certain criteria without retrieving the data. In addition, retrieve-all functionality is not available. Many users, like those integrating an SAP system with another enterprise information system, require quick, dynamic access to the data contained in the SAP database. These users are limited to BAPI supported functions, and the unnecessary overhead that many of the BAPI supported functions include.
The ABAP application API offers access to the SAP database, but does not give access to relevant SAP data, such as table hierarchies including foreign key relationships. The ABAP application API also does not provide access to certain SAP tables. This also severely limits the ability of a user to dynamically query or access data using the ABAP application API.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method for direct dynamic retrieval of hierarchical data from SAP. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would also offer quick, dynamic access to an SAP database using more query types than are available using the BAPI'S, while retaining all relevant SAP information, including table hierarchies.